Just read this interesting article in the Advertising Age website by Bill Imada called, “Have Asian Americans Done Enough for the Black Community?”
It’s sad that I think the really obvious answer to this really is, no. Given the history of what I’ve seen, on how we treat black people as customers, as friends, as people to emulate and yet not really understand their histories and how they’ve paved the way for other minorities to fight for social and economic justice, and how Asians view blacks with so much hatred and fear because of how blacks have been portrayed in the media (like the infamous AsianWeek op-ed piece), I think that there should be more introspection into how we’ve been taught to fear and hate each other and learn how to respect each other and our histories and that we’re dealing with many of the same issues they are.
Yes, this is really painfully obvious, but sad that people need to write articles like Imada’s to make us see that we’ve got a long way to go…
(Flickr photo credit: yngrich)
